In Which A Previously Unpublished Post Sees Light

Regular readers of this blog know that Darcy can get a little obsessive about one particular thing for months at a time. Right now, we are in the midst of ocean obsession. This has been going on for a very long time now. I think it's been close to a year and it shows no sign of stopping, even as she lets smaller obsessions come and go. Birds are one of the minor interests these days, and she spends time reading bird books, using iBird to look birds up and listen to their calls, and musing about the birds we see out and about. Like everything else she turns her mind to, she is building an amazing wealth of knowledge about birds. But, in keeping with the major obsession of the moment, ocean and shore birds have an edge over all others.

So earlier this summer, I spent a week driving her to and from Trinidad so she could go to Marine Lab Day Camp at Humboldt State University's marine lab. I started to write  a very long post about that week and never published it. It was supposed to lead up to the last day of camp, when Michael and I got to the lab to pick her up and discovered that she had lost a tooth during lunch! There had been no wiggling, no looseness...she bit into her sandwich and out it came. I had tried to take a picture of it without success and that's when I put this post on hold, thinking I would fix that. And there it sat, unpublished. But now I'm dusting it off and adding some more pictures of the marine camp.

This was definitely a highlight of our summer. Amazing that our small child got to play in a college lab, feed fish heads to sea anemones, and walk to the ocean for science every day. Crescent City readers take note: Other than figuring out rides (carpool!), this was ridiculously affordable. I think it was $40 for the whole week, five hours a day. Watch for it next summer. So here's the original partial post:


It's been quite a week in our corner of the world. Quite a looooong week. 

Monday was my birthday (and a very good one, too, thanks to the many wonderful people in my life who sent greetings, birthday wishes, and gifts). I got up at six so I could finish moving us our of our friends' house. We had been living there while they were away for ten days so that Michael could put new flooring in our bathroom, entry, and kitchen, and install a new-to-us wall oven. Darcy and I left at 7:30 to drive an hour and twenty minutes to Trinidad for the summer day camp at HSU's Marine Research Lab. This is the view from thirty steps away from the lab:

Not so bad, huh? While Darcy was at camp, I spent five hours drinking coffee at a nice cafe, window shopping in Arcata, chatting with friends and family on the phone, and generally just being relaxed. It was lovely. 

I got back to the lab a bit early to pick Darcy up and they weren't yet back from their daily field trip, so I walked around Trinidad's hilly streets for a while admiring the views and gardens. I was across the harbor when I saw kids starting to descend from Trinidad Head and spied Darcy (in the orange top with a hat near the utility pole):

She had a great first day at camp and we hopped in the car for the drive home. And once home, we changed into soccer-appropriate clothes and went to her first soccer practice:

Home again for a very quick, simple, but completely delicious dinner of bread, apples, avocados, and a variety of lovely cheeses, followed by molten chocolate cakes made by Michael! End of Day 1.

(Here, the original post ends.)